Traveling to Santander, Day 9

Thursday was an early day. We had to get up at 5am to get ready, packed and off by 5:30 in order to get to the airport on time. I had a flight that left around 10:30am from Cologne to Bilbao, Spain, Leanne had a train that left from Cologne to Nurnburg, and Supy had a flight that left from Dusseldorf to JFK.
So we packed everything up, said our goodbyes to Eva, and headed to Cologne. But as we passed that same McDonalds we stopped at 2 days earlier, we decided to pull back in, because Supy had noticed a huge puddle of muddy water in the parking lot. I don't think I mentioned it yet, but the first day we had the car, someone bumped us while parking or something and left a nice scratch on our rear right quarter panel. We were afraid we were going to have to pay for it, so Supy decided we should use the mud to cover it up. It took about 10 minutes of supy splashing it on the car, and me trying to peel out in it, before it looked like we had just gotten back from a safari trip! But in the end, it worked! The car rental agency was more concerned about asking where we had gone, to notice the scratches that seemed to blend into the mud!! :) Awesome job supy!
We got to the Koln/Bonn airport with plenty of time to spare. We all had breakfast together one last time, before supy left for Dusseldorf, and I went into the security area of the airport. We had had an awesome 8 days together. What a great road trip!
My flight was pretty good to Bilbao. They had given me an exit row, but my seat didn't have a seat in front of it! I had SO much leg room! And on top of that, there wasn't anyone sitting in the seat next to me! It was a great flight!
When I got to Bilbao, I took the next bus to Santander, and after being up and traveling for the last 9 and a half hours, I finally arrived! I called up Kat and Katy who I was staying with, and headed over to their apartment.
After I had settled in, I met up with Elodie and Esther and ate Manolos! Manolos was this food place right across the street from my piso last year. The food is great and it was just so convenient! So we grabbed some of that and headed to the Ayuntomiento plaza to eat it and watch the gente (people). I immediately saw three of my students from last year!
After about an hour of hanging out with them, I left to go watch my Mom perform live via webcast from Calgary, Alberta, Canada! It was great to see her all the way from Spain, and to think that while I sat there watching her on the screen, she was on the other end at the exact same second, staring out into an audience full of people and a camera!
After that, I went back to Kat and Katy's. I mixed up some Calimocho (drink of the North of Spain consisting of half red wine, half coca cola) and met up with Elodie and Esther to play some darts at El Dorado! After that, we headed to Mala Espina and danced the night away until 4am!

Cologne & Essen - Day 6

On Monday, we started real early. Esther needed to be to the airport by 9:30, so we had to leave by 8 from her house. Nothing special happened on the ride. We sang some songs on the radio, talked about what we were doing over the next couple of days, and even convinced Leanne that we DID NOT need to stop at McDonalds for breakfast!
After we dropped her off, we were off. It was finally my turn to drive (driving a stick in germany on the autobahn.... FUN!) Supy and Leanne had to repeatedly remind me that we were not in a racecar... Ooops! So we drove for an hour or two and finally found Cologne. We stopped in the really flashy looking business district first because Leanne had to go to the bathroom so bad. But it was a good thing, because we found a little Bratwurst stand that we had our lunch at. SOOO GOOD! After that, we drove towards the older part of the city where the huge cathedral sits alongside the Hauptbahnhof. We decided to not go up into it, as none of us really had a desire to climb the I-forget-how-many-steps. So we just chilled for about an hour or so there, then we took off for Dusseldorf!
Now German Matt was the one who told us to go to Dusseldorf to go see the old section of town and to see a shopping area called King's Alley. Needless to say, we successfully got lost as soon as we arrived, and got frustrated and left without seeing anything except the downtown streets. :)
We finally arrived in Essen around 4:45, and met Matt in the Burger King parking lot like he told us to. We met his girlfriend, Ella, who was very nice, and they both met Supy and Leanne. We followed Matt to his house and said hello to his Mom and Dad, and pretty much had dinner right away. After dinner, I watched the recent episode of Family Guy with Martin, Matt's brother, and then we all went downstairs to watch Matt smoke his hookah!
Finally, around 9 PM we went out to pick up Celina and head out to the strip of cocktail bars by the Gasometer. The drinks were awesome there. We were drinking things like Swimming Pools, Dragons, etc After about an hour and a half, we headed out, to find McDonalds down the way open and awaiting us. We had the munchies! And of course, like always, German Matt wanted a picture of us "Americans" enjoying our fast food... haha.
When we got back to the Schroeders house, Leanne happened to mention that she wasn't feeling well, so Mr. Schroder fixed her up a hot rum and sugar drink. It was hilarious. Leanne just sipped away at it. But then, he offered Supy and I brandy and coke! After a drink or two with Mr. Schroder, we all watched his fishing video from this year (he goes on an annual fishing trip with his buddies, and every year, they make a movie out of it!).
We headed upstairs for bed, but before going to sleep, we called Meghann real quick to wish her a happy birthday back in New Mexico.